After a violent storm, one of the major clean ups you may have to do is to clean up glass from a broken window. Broken glass should be one of the very first things that you clean up; after you have determined that the home is safe to be in. Any broken glass that is allowed to remain can cause unnecessary injuries.
Record the Damage
Before you start cleaning up your broken glass, make sure to record the damages. You can do this through a video recording or photos. Take pictures of where the glass came from and where the glass ended up. You may need this for your homeowner’s insurance claim.
Clean up the Broken Window Glass
When glass shatters it has a lot of energy behind it, so it can travel a lot farther than you think it would. For an area that can be swept, enter the room with shoes and working gloves on, and sweep off the glass you find on surfaces down to the floor.
Next, sweep the entire floor for glass. Just because it looks like the glass is concentrated in one area doesn’t mean that there aren’t small pieces that made it farther.
If you are working with a carpeted area, use a shop vacuum to get up all the glass in the room.
Secure Your Home
To prevent further damage to your home, you will want to cover the holes that are in the broken window. A tarp will work to cover the hole fast and as a temporary solution, but screwing in pieces of wood is a more secure choice.
Either way, this is only meant to prevent people, bugs and weather from getting into your home until you can get the windows replaced.
Contact Your Insurance Company
File a claim with your insurance company as soon as you can. Normally, it would be better to go through your agent, but if the damage is bad in your area your insurance agent will be swamped with calls; not to mention having to deal with their own damage.
Hire a Professional for Replacing Glass Panes
Unless you know what you are doing, don’t try to replace the glass in the windows yourself. Hire a professional to do them for you. That way they can also access if the other parts of the window were damaged by the storm. If there is more than just glass damage, you may have to replace the entire broken window.
